We Put the Grr in Guerrilla Warfare

[Aver Brand]

You know

Her punches went straight through the softer parts of the fighters, plunging into the abdominal organs with an ease that initially surprised her. Then she embraced it, and used it to great effect ever since.

I never figured we’d stick together

The kicks, though… those were something else. She ended up with her boot in someone’s chest cavity up to her ankle once, mid-scrap, and paid the top of her ear as the price. Blood was pouring generously down the left side of her face now, but hey… you should’ve seen the other guy.

not as long as we have.

She paused for a moment, to regain breath, to fix her hair, and to jank a broken-off rib out of the profile of her sole. It had been karking with her balance something fierce.

Remember Manaan?

The honest confession curled her lips up in a smile even as she ducked under a desperate haymaker from something on her left, retaliating with a quick jab to the attacker’s plexus. With anyone else, the hit would’ve sent her foe stumbling, robbed of air, but he’d be alive. With Aver Brand 2.0, he was left dangling on her outstretched arm as she straightened her legs again. Their eyes met as he writhed and flailed there, slipping slowly but surely ever closer to her waiting palm. She pushed aside the fluttering bags of lungs, struggling in vain to suck in precious breath, fingers wrapping around the prize with a distinct satisfaction etched into her hard features.

She shoved the corpse off her arm, and was left with his cooling heart in her grasp.

“For you, dear.”

The firrerreo flicked the red mess of torn veins and nerves at [member="Loray Tares"] with a mischievous grin, wiping her hand into someone’s shirt as she passed them on the way back to the terminal.

“We have the codes to the upper levels. Let’s go.”

 

[Loray Tares]

You know...I never figured we'd stick together...not as long as we have...Remember Manaan?

The heart moved through the air, not unlike her, light footed and without a care. Voice the soft hint of rain, deluge of blood that preceded a catastrophic event. He had never been interested in whatever mission this was, beyond the bodies that she flung in his way. His purpose had never been more singular than it was now, ankle deep in blood. Just like on this station, months ago.

Releasing the severed limb, he caught the heart with an iron grip. Just to squeeze too hard, rupturing the muscles and splitting the valves. Like raw ground beef between his fingers, he stepped once and was behind her, catching the hand as it wiped across a shirt. With a flick back, he'd spin her towards him. While he couldn't overpower her now, not that he ever could, he could still surprise her. After all, this setting wasn't so far from the moments of vengeance they once shared and until now, he had showed no interest in things beyond the gore.

Manaan. Kashyyyk. Selvaris.

His hands would attempt to find placement on her hips, thumb digging into the waist through whatever garments she might have been wearing. There was always the struggle between the two, often deflated in the presence of Matsu. They could only ever agree to succumb to her, never to each other. But the fight had left him in a state, the rush of blood to follow, he could taste the leather. Chomping at the bit. But where was the passion, he wondered? Had they turned mechanical in more than just frame? He could feel the rails beneath his feet, guiding him, and maybe he could find the power to jump free. And with a tilt of the head, he looked towards the woman through a slit view of the helmet. Strong grip anchoring her to him, tugging.

"Do you remember...soot and ash? Do you remember that grashal and the armor?"

How could she forget.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy3W7jpYs1E​

​

Despite the impassive metal slab that served as his mask, Aver knew there was a reflected grin curling his lips as he cradled the heart before crushing it to a pulp with a squeeze of his fingers. It was because the sliver in her spine was shivering in obscene delight at the scene they’d just painted in the hall, guts and brains and all. It was because of the shift of his shoulders, the cant of his hips, the plant of his feet.

They knew each other... perhaps a bit too well.

He drew her in, closer than most were allowed, and she let him. Bodies molded and meshed, with edges and holes that could only be fit by one other piece, as jagged and broken as they were. Where they had been organic machines before and choose the circuitry later, Matsu seemed to have followed the exact opposite pattern.

Balance, always.

Aver smiled, cupping his metal cheek with a bloody palm that would surely leave a print as red as the burning slit in his visor, glistening on the cool alloy.

Echoing the gesture that marked the first stepping stone on their long and corpse-riddled path, the woman pressed her forehead against his, closing her eyes to the hum of machinery all around them.

“If you want me to break your ribs again, all you have to do is ask.”

As the sweet words left her lips, the woman slipped out of his embrace, flashing a smile full of teeth. Hooking a single finger into his neck guard, she would drag him slowly towards the wall they had so soundly smashed through, and then to the elevators for the top floor.

She heard the slug had a magnificent bathtub.

 

[Loray Tares]

It was just like those moments passed against the mirrored floor, the reflection of bodies entangled. The struggle that persisted throughout a factions bloody history, a decade spent deciding who was the strongest without ever coming to terms. A certain intimacy was inherent in that exchange, the sort of jovial tenderness that he could come to see behind her threats and implicit gestures. A veiled expression, if there was ever one. And yet, she had moved on to accepting what they had become and he had merely arrived. No process in between, a wrathful individual to one that was simply driven. Driven by something he couldn't understand and seemed to be absent the need. He felt more machine in the moments that preceded this brief embrace but with the way she cupped into him, not fighting like she had in the history that passed, he recalled a life before this.

Where was that life, though? Had he truly whisked it away in moments of perceived clarity, ridding a body of the perception of illness? Was it all just in that singular flash in the pan, in the lab, where the man leaped from his life and padded away, tossing and turning from the hand he had been dealt. That seemed unfair to Loray, an easy life when the universe demanded something far harder. Steel would sooner turn to mud. No, he could only hope that that man suffered in his own ways. That was the only way he could find the form of peace he sought, clenched in the arms of another and confused for the briefest moments.

And then it was there again, that memory of the grashal and his ribs crushed. The pain and the struggle, the lucidity of that encounter refracted upon his current self, refocusing him and polarizing him back towards the simple notions of destruction. There was a time and place for thoughts on his former life. That time was then, that place wasn't here or anywhere he would ever exist again. He was machine and a machine had no need for such thoughts. Not anymore.

With her finger gripped against his neck guard, she tugged him along as he dragged his feet through the soupy remains of those that deemed themselves worthy of battle. They weren't, but the idle time was akin to small talk before the hard questions. The one that might lead to the death of a Hutt in a space station. As he was pulled, his hand rubbed the blood from his cheek as his gaze fixed upon the darkened materiel of his palm.

No. No Balance.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

His retort rang in the metal confines of her skull the elevator, a dark undercurrent in a voice that was corpse-colored on the best of days. On instinct, she shot him a wary look over her shoulder as they continued their slow ascent, as if there would be any semblance of emotion reflected on the impassive alloy of his faceplate.

Old habits.

The mercenary shifted her piercing gaze from her longtime associate to the digital eye peering down at them from the corner of the moving box. And smiled. And tried to imagine what thoughts were running through the head of whoever happened to be watching on the other side. They would’ve seen them enter, and witnessed how they had dispatched the gamorreans. They would’ve followed them as the Equalizers brought down the wall, and curled up into a ball once they started cutting their way through the mess hall.

Because how could she otherwise explain the lack of additional security? By then, Aver had thought the two of them would be accosted by squads of guards rushing to the rescue, but nobody appeared.

Then again… they could be walking into an ambush on the top floor.

Humming an old song by a lover long left behind in the dust, the mercenary punched out the ceiling panel – though it looked more like a lazy stretch, really – and pulled herself through. As she cast a glance back down at the narrow opening, she gave herself a mental pat on the shoulder for forgoing her armor today. Despite its sleek and streamlined design, he suit would’ve made her ascent much more of a nuisance.

“You feel anything?” she called down to [member="Loray Tares"], the more… aware of the two. The firrerreo peered up into the darkness as they climbed floor after floor, scanning the shapes of gray for any sign of danger.

Won’t be long now.

 

[Loray Tares]

The odd sound of the elevator music filled his ears, tapping his foot patiently to the soothing rhythm. The way that glass eye had looked down at them, the red beam encased within it and how it slowly moved to follow them - it gave him an unnerving sense. Without it, he would have known they were being watched. But with it there, in the flesh as it were, it laid all suspicions to rest. Which is why he had removed it from the wall, ripping out the cords from the duracrete. The last dying memories of the camera would be the vision of plate hiding the visage of a ghost. And that very well could be the last thing the man behind the lens would see, sent off to his death by the hand of an equalizer.

Loray looked, watching quietly, as the woman scaled the inner shaft of the lift to rise above its currently stationary body. The man pressed at the buttons but there seemed to be no response to his efforts. The vehicle was locked down, it seemed, and the only way was through and up. Bouncing the camera in his hand, similar to a ball player before the game began, it crashed against the floor as he answered the question with a brief moment of silence. There was a time when he may have been the more aware of the two but standing here now, he wasn't convinced he was the man for the job. Staring into the sun, how could he be anything but blind?

Shaking the feeling free with a gaze down to the floor, he shook his head. Hands gripped and loosened and gripped once more, ambient energy pouring out of him without control. He could be aware if he tried but it was the difference between night and day. There was no happy medium, no control anymore, as he interfaced with his surroundings. Something that could be seen by his lofty companion, perched above, as he took in his environment and all of its residual aspects. It was then that it became clear to him what was to occur next.

Calmly, he followed suit and lifted himself up through the passage. Grabbing Aver, he gripped her wrist harshly before curling her fingers around the cables currently holding the lift in place. Wrapping his fingers around, just above hers, he looked towards her with a tilt of the head. From the small of his back, he unsheahted the czerka knife to the echoing sound of metal on metal. Just as everything he touched, his aura poured into it and coated it with a stain, wrapping it with imbued presence. With a swift cut, the cables were freed and the duo were flung upwards as the lift crashed down to the based of the building. Just as it hit, the explosives beneath the lift detonated, sending flames through the access doors and upwards.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

“What are you—”

The rest of her sentence morphed into an enraged hiss as they were yanked up by the dead weight of the freefalling elevator, propelling them both towards the darkness and unknown waiting above. The explosion followed not a breath later, interrupting the smooth descent of the metal box and in turn their vertical climb.

It was a combination of instincts and sharpened reflexes that saved them from slamming bodily into the walls of the shaft as the cable swung wildly about; Aver coiled up and flexed outward, drawing blood as she sank her teeth into her lip. Still, the impact was negligible compared to what could’ve happened, and the woman pushed off again with a powerful thrust of her legs, ignoring the throbbing pain in the balls of her feet.

The problem would be gone in a few minutes’ time anyway, and whatever awaited them at the top would certainly overshadow any lingering discomfort.

Her breathing had leveled off to normal by the time they rappelled to the top, and the two Equalizers fell eerily silent as they hung suspended in the air a few scant meters from the elevator doors.

Aver stared.

The doors remained stubbornly closed.

“Fine,” she muttered darkly, abandoning her grip on the cable with one hand to latch it onto the inner workings of the panel on the other side. A few beads of sweat ran down her brow as she grit her teeth, thankful for the grounding taste of iron in her mouth as she yanked and pulled and twisted the entrails of the circuitry until it rolled over, eviscerated.

The doors opened.

[member="Loray Tares"]

 

[Loray Tares]

Silence was his new modus operandi. With the exception of the growl, the scream, and the occasional laugh, he had so very little to say. What couldn't be said through his hands or quiet gaze needn't truly be said. At least, that was his new found perspective, soaked in a vat of blood and hung up to dry. So when Aver made her utterance of acquiescing to this circumstance, appreciating the spontaneity of his actions, he simply gave her a long and hard stare. It was one of endearment, in a life where he often eschewed such gestures.

As she yanked free the cords and circuitry from the box, the doors swung open. Swinging back, he rocked back and forth on the cables until he reached the opposite side of the wall. Kicking off with his foot, he flung himself into the open cavity to bathe in the yellow and orange lamps lights, hanging loosely above. The room being more tan and brown than anything else, it seemed oddly out of sorts for being in a space station. Perhaps the Hutt had transplanted part of his world here, cutting out a segment of an outer rim dusty planet to drop on the top of the station. To make it his own. Through the vents of the mask, it smelled of piss and damp socks and if he concentrated, he might have even heard the trickle of water against the exposed tiling floor. Where the dirt was worn down to reveal the foundation.

Leaning down, after coming to a rolling crouch, he placed a hand on the elevator threshold for Aver to take. Until he was blown over to the ground, Voxyn hand clenching the armor on his left arm. Sliding to a stop, he left a wake in the odd flooring to reveal the enamel below. Even with fingers covering the plate, the smoke and heat rising from the metal was obvious. The metal was dented in and near ruptured, bruising underneath would be fairly present when he had the chance to take off the armor. Letting out a growl, his oh so expressive nature, he staggered up to look down the long hallway that ran left and right of the elevator entrance. Squinting, he spotted another alien in the distance. Not in the hallway. No, the hallway had a window that overlooked a massive internal atrium with an impressive drop down to the other portions of the station. And across that, in the distance, Loray just barely noticed the lens flare of the rifle. He got the distinct impression that the rifle was bigger than the person wielding, particularly with the power it was packing.

We are going to get caught in a cross fire here.

Just then, he staggered forward as another hit, from the opposite direction, smacked the plate against his right shoulder blade. He could feel the blackened hand hiss in response. It seemed, in their hurry to get to the top, they had entered a narrow passageway, atrium's on both sides with massive drops, and breezeways open for the picking. They needed to get to the end of this passageway and quickly. Their armor would only handle so much beating and despite how much he loved pain, he wasn't looking to die in this particular brand of dirt. Not without rolling with her in it first.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Suddenly, Aver was extremely glad that it was [member="Loray Tares"] that had gone through the door first. Her face was still contorted in sympathy for the pain he was doubtless enduring after the two sniper rounds that had slammed smack dab into his armor.

Still hanging back on the cables of the elevator, she couldn’t help but agree with his assessment. What was more troubling was her lack of phrik and KIG to protect her from the high-energy projectiles. Just one of those was enough to tear through defenseless flesh like a hot knife through butter, and Aver would readily admit that she had no wish to be the butt end of that comparison.

And then she remembered the small device strapped to her belt at the small of her back. While seemingly innocuous, the contraption packed a staggering amount of power; even if it wasn’t the stopping kind of power, Aver still wasted no time utilizing its capabilities. It took a great deal of grip strength, patience, and willpower to key in the persona she had in mind while dangling by a thread above a hundred feet drop.

Luckily, she had all three, and when she finally did swing into the hallway, the mercenary looked to all the world – and, more importantly, the snipers on the roof – like one of the guards that had accosted them in the lower reaches of the Hutt’s palace. Instead of landing soundly on the floor beside her companion, Aver went to tackle the man, drawing and cracking her baton down into the ground mere hairs away from his head.

From afar, it would give the impression she was looking for, because she needed to make it quickly, or the only thing she’d make was a really grisly corpse.

Stay, she growled at Loray before drawing up again, grateful that she’d had the good judgement to smear her baton with blood during the massacre in the mess hall. It made for quite a convincing example of ‘death from above’.

“He’s dead!” she called out gingerly coming to stand beside the would-be corpse. Every thread of her body was on edge, artificial or otherwise; Aver was ready to drop back down at a moment’s notice. She made a show of glancing about before tipping her chin to look at one of the snipers again.

“You get the other queen already?”

 

[Loray Tares]

Skidding across the floor, again, he felt a limp spasm run the course of his body. The baton crashing down upon the floor next to his head, the impact sent a plume of dirt originating from cracked floor tiling. But it wasn't Aver who tackled him, though he had watched her transform into something else. A Togorian. The way it crashed into him, nearly broke his head in, he felt a pause as he considered reciprocating. Until she growled a command, the sort of expression that might have excited him in other situations. Truth be told, it excited him now. He was a creature of few comforts and being beaten into submission was one of them.

Closing his eye, he went fully limp and slowed his breathing, even though he assumed the snipers wouldn't be able to see from that distance. Might as well sell it all the way or not sell it at all. With an awkward silence, an obvious cease fire, the doors at the end of the hall slid open with a hiss. Blue gun metal moved to reveal a large room, lit with red and orange lamps, and looked to be the inner confines of the headquarters for this ring leader. And from it, several guards in full armor were birthed. They moved in formation through the corridor, their boots echoing through the chamber and growing as the distance closed. Until they were there, weapons raised at Aver and the presumed corpse.

"This him?" The commanding officer spouted out, approaching the body and kicking it hard in the head.

Loray stifled any noise, moving only to the inertia, as he bit down on his tongue.

"Where's the queen? You must have seen her, they were together!" A subordinate moved from the ranks and around the disguised woman, peering down the elevator shaft.

"Hey boss, maybe the explosion got her!"

He paused as he approached what he assumed was another Togorian guard. Glaring, he gave the silence a chance to linger before nodding. "Is that what happened?"

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Breath didn’t come easy in those stretched-out moments as Aver waited for the shot. Refusing to fall into the trap of tunnel vision, the woman willed her heart into pace and surveyed her surroundings with as much feigned comfort as she could.

Finally, a sound pierced the silence, but it wasn’t gun rapport. Only [member="Loray Tares"] would be able to spot how her shoulders sagged at the notion of a brief ceasefire, and then she turned her back on him to face the newcomers. There were five in total – four mooks and their leader – but they looked as far removed from rank and file security as one could. Without the context, the merc would’ve pegged them for professional soldiers sooner than anything else.

Which meant that she was, without a doubt, meant to be their subordinate. Great.

“Yeah,” she grunted, short. The longer she spoke, the more likely it became that one of them caught a whiff of the deception.

Following the other guard’s gaze, Aver shrugged, summoning the depths of her pervasive apathy to the surface.
“Probably. Got the call from the second floor, swung by to check the noise,” she paused, jutting a clawed thumb in the direction of the snipers.

“Mopped up.” A toothy grin. That, at least, was simple enough to reproduce from the spectrum of her expressions.

Her explanation was met with a round of half-hearted nods, and one of the men went to nudge Loray with his boot again. It wasn’t him Aver was keeping watch of, though; the commander looked less than convinced, and if he was even half as competent as he seemed, the trouble was far from over.

Sensing his brewing suspicions, the mercenary interjected with her own suggestion, hoping to derail his dangerous train of thought.

“Maybe the queen unloaded a floor lower? If this frakker made it through…” she let the sentence trail away, banking on the leader to fill in the blanks.

 

[Loray Tares]

"Hmm, maybe..."

The captain looked over to the four remaining men and lifted his head. "You four, take the stairs." He pointed to the door ten feet from the elevator entrance. "Check every floor on the way down and comm over to the snipers. Give them an update with every move down."

They returned nods, no salutes, as they ran towards the door and the Captain approached the disguised woman. "You're lucky to be alive. They took out a mess of people down stairs. How you managed to land the jump on him, I don't know." He smiled. "But I'm not one to question a blessing."

The stern attitude was one of necessity it seemed, one he carried for his men alone. After all, the time spent working for the Hutt, day in and day out, hadn't left him much time for socializing or adapting to his circumstance. The tan line of a wedding band over his left ring finger indicated commitments, but ones laid to the wayside for the need for a paycheck and to support his family. He wasn't quick to thank a simple guard but he was, in his own way, appreciative for the help. He wasn't sure he could've taken the armored man down, himself. Reports had indicated he had taken two sniper shots to the center, still got up and moved.

"Listen, gotta inform the boss..." He pointed a thumb back down the hallway, towards the open door. "Bring the body and follow me in, he'll wanna see the face of the man that's been causing so much trouble." He turned, knowing full well that as a simple human, he had far less strength then the average alien. Particularly a Togorian, which would explain the ability to endure pain of encountering such a figure. He spoke away from her as he walked. "You know there was a pretty similar attack in the recent past. A duo took out a whole dance club. What a mess to clean up - I still haven't gotten the blood out from underneath my fingernails."

Loray laid quietly on the ground, shallow breaths, as he closed his eyes and waited to see what Aver would do.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver snorted and hefted the pretend-corpse over her shoulder. Between the CERS, the armor, and the personality, [member="Loray Tares"] made for one heavy bastard.

“Luck, I guess,” she spoke at the Captain’s retreating back. His was a brisk pace, and with the additional weight now pressing down with her every step, the merc had to stifle a groan of exertion. She shifted her grip, coiling a pair of clawed digits underneath a phrik plate with an ear-piercing gnash of metal on metal.

You better cut down on Anajjan food after this, she hissed at Loray, dead certain that the son of a Bith was sporting a chit-gobbling grin.

“Yeah, I heard. Glad I wasn’t around for that one.” Her blatant lie slipped through with a barely suppressed laugh.

They entered another room, then, and her focus snapped back to the guard. The chamber around them might have been spacious once, but it was cluttered now, packed to the brim with tasteless kitsch. Severed and shrunken heads adorned the walls, nailed just above an impressive menagerie of monster hides. Beneath them stood rows of grotesque creatures and men immortalized in carbonite at the height of anguish, frozen bodies that now cast flickering shadows across the dirt. In the centre ruled a wide podium, complete with decorative spikes and strobe lights.

Slug kebab, anyone?

Her growling stomach was rendered tame and docile when two vicious snarls echoed through the chamber, torn from the throats of Tuk’ata at the Hutt’s side. On shorter leashes still were a couple of Twi’leks chained to the slug’s pedestal, so far gone that it was impossible to tell whether they were miserable or just bored out of their minds.

Aver dumped her longtime associate and lover on the floor before the Hutt, dipping her chin in a piss-poor attempt at deference.

“So the intruders are dead?” Smacking its fat lips, the blob of grease slid forward.

Then it narrowed its big, glossy eyes, and the merc wondered idly if it would fall on its face. “Where’s the female?”

“We’re still looking for her, Lord. We think she dodged the bomb and got out on a lower floor.” Like a good little pawn, the Captain parroted her earlier statement. Aver flashed a grin at the floor.

“You better find her, Grideas! I don’t pay you to stand around!”

The distaste rolling off the guard was nearly palpable, but years of service had inured him enough that he didn’t even flinch when a glob of yellow saliva splattered across his breastplate.

“No, Lord, you don’t. We’ll have her head on the wall before dinner.”

From where she was standing, she could hear him grit his teeth.

“And you, huh? You killed this man? On your own?”

At that, Aver raised her gaze and met the Hutt’s; closer than she’d expected. “Yes.”

“Hrm. Well, if you say so! What do you want, boy? A slave?” It tugged on one of the chains, and a Twi’lek whimpered. “Credits? Promotion?”

Instead of answering, the merc reached out with her newly nurtured power and wrapped it around the wiring in the ceiling. For a second more, she was staring down Wususk Peijilic Tirabba, and then all the lights went out.

In the next moment, Aver was on the Captain, and the Tuk’ata were on the corpse.

 

[Loray Tares]

He was smiling. Until he hit the floor.

Tossed like a bag of potatoes, he slid and rolled over himself, playing the part of ragdoll as best he could. Visor landed, just as he hoped, with a spectacular view of shrunken heads, spikes, flickering lights moved by some odd cosmic wind, and a vile thing. A fat, boisterous, slobbering, glutenous pile of animated lard. Sending this thing on it's way was a kindness and if there was anything Loray wasn't a fan of, it was unnecessary kindness. But in the same vein, suffering was a gift in and of itself. Kill the thing quickly or make it suffer, both were boons to the man lying dormant along the floor. Now covered in dirt and blood and the ever watchful eye of all those in the room. As if something dead might somehow spring to life...

​He hadn't felt the force presence of his companion, not like that. She had always been one for the direct attack, the brutish nature of combat and warfare, the warmth of fresh blood across bare finger tips, the feeling of grime beneath the fingernails. In all the time they had spent together, he couldn't recall a moment where she had expressed herself in such away. Even amidst those such as himself and the Atrisian, it was always bare bones. It was riveting, the darkness that followed and despite what sight was removed, how he could see her just fine. And the way she pounced, he grew suddenly jealous of the captain and the attention he would see receive. That would take his mind away, for the briefest of moments, before he felt a clench down on his left arm. Like a grip, tightening, he felt a yank as he was flung back and forth across the floor before being released.

A missile without fins.

An eruption of noise and grunts signaled his landing, the cracking of the wall and the fallen heads where the requests for encore. A presentation he wouldn't afford as he cast away the guise, lifting himself amid all the darkness. Looking behind him, he realized he pancaked a small guard beneath his weight. All that was left was loose skin and seeping wounds - a body bag of toy building blocks.

The beast had his scent now. Whether that be physical or the tasting of his monstrous force presence, a cacophony drawing the attention of the hound, he couldn't say. Or more importantly, he really didn't care. What he did care about was his forearm, used for blocking, that was now being used as a chew toy. Feeling the ferocity and force of the sith beast, his body was pressed against the wall with lunges in space. Each press squashed the body behind him just a bit more, pressing a fruit free of juice far beyond what was necessary. Seeds and rind mashing together.

Pushing his left foot forward, his right arm came crashing down across the forehead of the creature. One hit. Two hits. Three hits. And then the growling stopped, the gentleness came over as Loray felt the head cave in like a bludgeoned gourd. Hard on the outside, empty within, the teeth clamped down even in death. Sticking his fingers into the mouth, he yanked upward and down simultaneously, splitting the head in two. He couldn't see the spray, but he could hear its metallic pangs against his armor. And that floppy sound a tongue makes when the body dies but continues to flail, collapsing to the floor. Stepping to the side, he grabbed the Tuk'ata and flung it towards where he imagined the Hutt might still be. After all, he didn't appear the fastest of movers.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

In her moment of triumph, Aver had miscalculated.

A strike that could’ve easily ended her life ended up breaking the Captain’s wrist instead. Not by luck, nor by some feat of Force, but simply because these days, she wasn’t exactly 100% firrerreo anymore. The metal and synthetic fiber running along the wiry cords of her muscles felt like punching a solid block of ferrocrete.

Unfun.

The merc forced out a breath as the fist connected with her abdomen, taking a step back to diminish the strength of the blow.

Between Grideas’ pained cries, the dying yelps of the Tuk’ata, and winded huffing of the Hutt, Aver was in her element. Like blood, conflict ran through her veins, powering the very beat of her being. She regained her footing and twisted her hips, abandoning HDM’s mirage as she returned the attack. The man ducked back instinctively, hissing as her strike grazed his shoulder, but he remained on his feet.

Without her armor’s usual gadgets, Aver didn’t have the advantage of thermal that she usually pulled on her opponents. But the keywords here were ‘without armor’, not ‘without gadgets’. It had taken time, and practice, and a million of failed attempts, but the merc was steadily reinforcing and reapplying her usage of the Force.

The trick with the lights? Just one such display.

The most useful of all, however, was the general feeling of the creatures around her. Ironically, wearing Vonduun Skerr Ygdris for so long and so often made her that much more able to appreciate the full brunt of her senses once they’d returned. The little nuances that had filtered through the cracks before had blossomed into revelations in perception.

And all of that might’ve been poetic and life-changing and eye-opening for someone else.

For Aver, it was just a new means of gaining an upper hand.

So when the nightvision-equipped Captain thought he’d gotten the better of her, he instead got the better of her knife, straight into his left kidney.

A shrill scream echoed through the chamber, and his form slumped down. Kneepads cracked against the trampled dirt, the sound lost in his anguish. She stepped behind him, and with a gentle touch hooked her fingers under his chin.

Even after all these years, the merc still took a life this way when she could. It made it count. Made it personal, made it close and real. Made it something she could dig her hands into, right up to the elbows.

And it made her smile, which was important, because you ought to enjoy your job.

“Hey, Loray?”

Her voice was full of that grin as she spoke, moving towards the oozing shape of the Hutt on his dais.

“I feel like cutting today. You?”

If she squinted, she could see a shiver of fear run along its edges.

 

[Loray Tares]

A yelp from a Hutt makes for an interesting sound. Particularly baritone, married to the slick sound of slime beneath moving lard, and the wet sound of a corpse splattering against a wall of skin. The toss of the Tuk'ata was right on the mark, likely splattering blood and bodily excrement against the crime lord. But the scream, that helpless yelp for help, it was enough to make the whole engagement worth all the trouble.

Was there ever a time where he didn't feel the need to cut? He couldn't recall, though pain came in so many forms. Why limit himself?

Walking quietly towards the throne, the pedestal for which the Hutt had elevated himself, Loray concealed his presence with a nonchalance and soft-footedness. The quaint sound of metal against sand granules could be heard, ever so delicately, as he pressed a hand against the blubber of the Hutt. The shiver, the tremor, all contorted the presence and feeling of aloofness within the being. As if he hadn't taken them seriously to begin with, it was all changing now. Loray smiled, beneath his mask, as he watched the being squirm away from his touch and attempt to evade the attention. There was one way out of this place and he could be damn sure that either of the equalizers would make it to it before he did.

This was leading somewhere and he had to know that. Or perhaps he was equipped with an indomitable form of naivety and denial. After all, they had killed everything and everyone that stood in their way. The captain and the Tuk'ata stood testament to that very notion, broken and bleeding and dead. Just like everything else left in their wake.

"Cutting?" He spoke quietly as he leaned against the chair, crossing his arms. The clink of armor could be heard as he cracked his neck, suddenly realizing that one of the teeth of the beast was buried deep into his forearm. Reaching in, he twisted the item and slowly retracted the tooth. Even with all the distractions, the sudden pain and the ecstasy of its presence, he could hear the drip drop of red in the sand.

"I would love nothing more than to watch you work." Dropping the tooth to the dull sound of its descent, he crossed his arms once more and paid the wound no more attention. He was hungry for her, the action up until this point only serving to rile him up. There was a purpose for their presence here, in this place, but for the life of him he couldn't seem to recall it. There was simply the prospect of pain now.

"Please, I can give you whatever you want. Power, position, money, slaves, drugs! What do you want!?!"

The Hutt made his plea, squirming through the dirt, all to the sound of Loray chuckling. The man wanted so much, all of which weren't listed by the crime lord. Seems he didn't know his audience all too well.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

A single lifted finger stemmed the flow of his words.

Wususk Peijilic Tirabba wobbled on the spot, glancing from one figure to the next. Emergency lighting had kicked in sometime between the hound-toss and neck-snap, bathing the room in a foreboding red. It spilled over his shivering rolls of fat, glistening on the sweat and oil.

“Oh, you’ll give us what we want.”

It wouldn’t save his life. Nothing could, when the two of them got into a mood. They had the capacity for mercy, mind you. Or at least Aver did. Loray was more given to unkindness, though by his perception he was doing the galaxy a favor.

In moments like these, she was inclined to agree.

The merc wiped her phrik blade in one of the fine fabrics decorating the Hutt’s dais, carefully listening to the rise and fall of his frantic breath. In the span of a few hours, he’d come from one of the most powerful creatures on Point Nadir to the gates of Netherworld. People like them, killers and criminals, you’d expect them to know how fragile life could be.

But just like everyone else, they realized it when it was too late. When death was whispering in their ear and the battlesong from the Field of Blades already rang in the distance. Denial was a powerful tool.

She flipped the knife from left to right, and stuck it into the end of his tail. It pierced the flesh with disgusting ease, sliding through the adipose padding and what little muscle lay inside, then back out the other way.

With a metallic screech, it finally embedded itself in the throne.

The Hutt screamed. Aver had never heard one scream, and knew right then and there that she wouldn’t seek to replicate the experience. It was an odd gurgling sound, with his thick tongue flapping about in his mouth as he waggled his comically disproportionate arms. All in vain.

“See, my friend here, he likes to watch. Nothing like squirming or crying. That’d be sick.”

Tipping her head to the side, the woman slowly strolled over in front of the Hutt and called the Captain’s unfired weapon to her waiting palm.

“He likes to see a bit of pain, though.”

“What are you people?!”

She ignored his climbing voice and released the safety on the gun. It was an old model; a slugthrower. They were easier to maintain here on the fringes of civilized space, and the ammunition far cheaper to procure. The lax trade regulations were just a bonus, really.

Without ceremony, Aver unloaded the magazine into a nearby wall and collected a palmful of red-hot casings. These she shoved into the slug’s babbling mouth and followed up with a fist to whatever passed for a chin on a Hutt, forcing him to swallow the scorching metal.

“Burn some of that fat, yeah?”

And sometimes, mercy was the last thing on her mind.

“You want to open him up?” she asked as she turned to [member="Loray Tares"] and gestured to her knife.

 

[Loray Tares]

He watched quietly, a trait his new persona demanded. It wasn't to force some sense of mystery or foreboding, though through the beady black eyes of the Hutt, he did catch that glimpse of intrigue. If only for the moment, proceeding the mouthful of metal. No, it was simply a matter of the noise. Within the depths of his mind, there was often too much to siphon into tangible expression, particularly amidst the rambles of the cursed weapon stuck deep within him. A cacophony would sooner birth a symphony. But for the occasions where it did let up, he might take advantage. Should that opportunity arise.

You want to open him up?

Beneath a mask that hid his expression, he conjured a smile as he pressed his index to his thumb. Then the middle to the thumb. The blood that trickled from his wound and once coated the tooth now clung to the gloves of his armor. Tacky, sticky, annoying, pleasing. What gave Ava the impression that he wouldn't enjoy a bought of squirming and crying, he couldn't tell. Perhaps because neither had experienced one or the other within each others presence, life often snatched away far too quickly to provide that pleasure. He imagined he might like it, before the boredom set in.

Stepping down from the throne, he took the dagger between his fingers, twirling the pommel over the back of his hand. All to the sound of the raspy gurgling of the Hutt, small hands clenched around the throat and gasping for air. Lifting his jowls to the ceiling, he spat out saliva and smoke and for a moment, Loray could have sworn he saw ash and fire. A reminder of a planet left behind, in the wake of their past, a flash of a memory that lasted but for a moment.

"No." He uttered abruptly, bulging eyes of the Hutt turning to him in surprise. It wasn't for any sense of mercy, simply the prolonging of the event.

"What do...do you want?!?" The fat Hutt choked out the words, squirming as he spattered the floor with blood and bile.

He cracked his neck, the armor stretched and moaned rebelliously against the movement, as he strafed slowly in parallel to the Hutt. Spinning the blade back over, he pointed the weapon with an outstretched arm. "Records indicate that you own the majority of Point Nadir. Sign over the station."

"...And you'll let me live?"

"I don't like being interrupted." Silence followed as he approached slowly, unarmed hand extending outward to ease the beast of his trembling. "Shhhhhh..." Cornering the Hutt, he placed his hand against the plump torso of the Hutt, craning his neck as he looked up towards the ceiling. "I wonder what your insides look like. I imagine, with the right tools, I could excavate most of your body without losing you to the void."

There was no indication that this event wouldn't occur, no matter what the Hutt did. They were wrathful Gods that now stood before him, allured by offering but hardly appeased. The Hutt could have his hope, Loray would have all that was left over. And with the bite of the blade, he cut from left to right and back again, carving a long wedge across the belly of the Hutt. With a moan and few steps back, he dropped his arm as the blade drip-dropped the green blood of the Alien. All to the new found screams of an ash bitten throat.

Maybe he did want to open him up, after all.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

The stage belonged to [SIZE=14.6667px]Loray[/SIZE] now. She gladly let him assume the spotlight and sank back to the red-hued shadows flickering about the room. Her dark clothes, though torn in places, allowed her to melt into her surroundings with preternatural ease. For a moment, the torturer and the captive could imagine they were alone in the chamber.

She savored the fleeting intimacy, borne of a deep wealth of knowledge that she and her companion shared. Of bone and muscle; of ligament and tendon; of blood, and fat, and the gray fluid that slicked the brain. They knew their well-worn paths through a body, and how to sever them to many ends. Whether it was an efficient kill they sought or a prolonged, anguished forfeit from life, the Equalizers could achieve it.

This kind of mastery often colored her own perception with arrogance. The self-assured twist of a knife in an open wound, as cruel as it was exact.

It was because of this lifelong practice that she could tell what [SIZE=14.6667px]Loray[/SIZE] was going to do. And, Nether, she’d spent enough time with the man as well. Ten years. Insane.

The Hutt cried, voice cracking over the [SIZE=14.6667px]soot[/SIZE] in his throat. More sickly green spilled forth, as did the stench of sour blood.

Aver scowled, angling away from the foul smell. The only reason she didn’t walk away was the powerful tether thrumming along her spine. Most days it was a subdued, quiet thing; a whisper in the back of her mind, just a bit redder and crazier than the rest.

Right now, that [SIZE=14.6667px]sliver[/SIZE] was screaming with unbridled joy.

“I’d sign that over if I were you,” she said. A glance around revealed the dull glint of a datapad on a side table, and the merc summoned it to her waiting palm. “Just a small signature and all of this can end.”

She approached with a sway in her step, proffering the lit screen like a beacon in a storm. Wususk’s frantic eyes found the source of light between the desperate gasps for air. More green bubbled up between his tiny fingers, racing down the slope of his belly to the pool on the dais.

“Better make it quick.”



[member="Loray Tares"]

 

[Loray Tares]

There it was again, that expression of power and it's new found place among their antics. It was a good thing the Hutt was so wounded, lest he slither away mid distraction. Though it wasn't purely for the display, because there was nothing truly special about it. But for the eye of the Voxyn arm and its ability to see aura. And perhaps it was that Loray had never really seen it, in this life or the one that preceded it, in such a nonchalant format. It was refreshing, a valuable thing, in such stagnant and repulsive air.

"Or don't. I have more time than I will ever need." Or that he wanted, to be entirely honest. Life was tethered to some indomitable twine, the sort that he couldn't seem to sever, no matter how hard he tried. Or perhaps he simply wished to approach that end, once more, to look down on the burning world beneath his soot-stained feet. To stand on a precipice, as they had before, instead standing here, flaying this thing with ease. Even as it moved, coughing up its vile blood and saliva, choking for air and life, Loray felt nothing but boredom for this investment. Aver was perhaps the only redeeming thing in this mud pit. Watching her sway, in all the new found unpredictable nature, was enough to keep him. And the notions of his extremism, forever trying to pull her off the ledge with him, made for a delightful endeavor. In between bouts of other activities.

"No no, I'll sign. I'll signnnnnn!" The long drawn out words clung to the stale air, one arm holding the pad amidst tremors, the other clutching at the wound. Holding in his intestines, Loray stood motionless as he held out his hand. Quickly, the beast signed and clicked through several screens. In most cases, a transaction like that couldn't be made that quickly and over such medium. But the Hutt had legal on retainer, the local space station court in his pocket, and every demand was met with due diligence. And so that was it, the pad handed over. "Just...just provide your signature."

Loray took it and looked over the content. But he had nothing to fear. A man with his guts hanging out had little reason to lie. A crime lord even more so. And a coward and a Hutt, didn't even register. Pressing his finger against the touch screen, he gave a nearly illegible signature and then turned towards Aver, handing it over. Refocusing his attention on the Crime Lord, he crossed his arms, tapping the blade against the pauldron of his armor.

"Are...are you going to let me livvvvvvvvvvve?"

The question came out somewhere between a moan and a whine, reeling from pain and fearful of it ending. What irony existed in this state, Loray couldn't understand it. But he did find it amusing, returning a muffled laugh as he waited for Aver to finish signing and to decide where they would go from there.

[member="Aver Brand"]​